Founded in 1898, the University of St. Gallen (HSG) continues to pursue the goal of providing its nearly 5,000 students with a practice-oriented education, guided by an integrative view of business, economics, law, and the social sciences

By Camille Bozonnet

When Jonas von Oldenskiöld, 25, studied for his first diploma at the Jönköping International Business School, Sweden, he realized that quantitative methods nowadays are an essential tool in economics. Good jobs for economists require profound knowledge of empirical research and analysis methods; the demand for people with these skills is currently high and increasing each day. Arriving at HSG as an exchange student, he chose from among the ten Master’s programmes and went for a Master of Arts in Quantitative Economics and Finance (MiQE/F), taught exclusively in English. “It is exactly what I was looking for and it complements my previous studies perfectly,” he announces.

MiQE/F drives students to delve deeper into the field of quantitative analysis. It uniquely combines theoretical concepts, methods, and their application to practical problems. Nevertheless, HSG trains students to be generalists, meaning they, as Jonas puts it : "are encouraged to think beyond their respective field of study. Courses like Economics, Philosophy or Business Ethics broaden our mind with unexpected ideas”. Underlining this is a great effort to help students to "cope with the complexity and the increasing tempo of everyday life and the working world, as well as changing global developments."

Interconnection of scholarly and entrepreneurial thinking

As a pioneer in the implementation of the Bologna model, HSG went far beyond re-labelling existing study programmes, undertaking a comprehensive restructuring of the curriculum. A basic professional training is no longer sufficient to meet the practical world’s increasing claims on the intellectual flexibility and intercultural qualifications of university graduates; therefore, all of their programmes now include Contextual Studies to meet these new requirements.

HSG has successfully redesigned its programmes. The demand for graduates is high. Every year more than 100 international corporations come to the FORUM HSG – the University’s official recruiting event – to get in contact with future graduates. Many of these sign a work contract before they even receive their diplomas. Even though it is a young programme, the list of MiQE/F alumni is already impressive. Whether the placements are in the private sector or in the academic field, renowned names are in evidence and include Barclays, London; PricewaterhouseCoopers, Zurich; New York University; the University of San Diego, and others. The reason for this popularity ? Jonas has the last word. "Studying at HSG is never in an "ivory tower", but always with the means to turn theory into practice", he observes.